News from the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club (SPARC)

Hi,

It is time for the February monthly meeting.  Wednesday, 1 Feb at 7PM at the Sheriff's station in Sterling.

Refreshments will be provided by Bill, K4UPE.

The presentation this month will be by Charlie, K3SR, on "DX/ing in Greenland."  I have seen the draft presentation and it is very interesting.  I do not think I am giving much away by saying that Charlie has not changed much over the years based upon the pictures in the presentation.

If we have time, we can discuss a few items of Club Business:

Preparations for he Virginia QSO Party are coming along well. We have sponsors for 24 of the 27 plaques lined up.

We have a Tech class and examination session scheduled for 11-12 February.  We have instructors for all the classes.  Red, N3TG, has organized the examination session.  We have scheduled things a little different this time.  The exam session will start at 1300 for members of the class and at 1400 for the exam only folks.  This is a change from all starting at 1300.  We hope this will alleviate the crowding.

Gordon, NQ4K, will talk about the J-Pole we will build at the March Monthly meeting.  He has decided on the Dual-Band J-Pole design by Ed, WB6IQN.  This is a 300 ohm twin-lead based design with a shorted stub to improve operation on 440 MHz.

We hope to see you at the meeting.

73, Gordon, NQ4K

Hi,

SPARC will conduct a Tech preparatory class on 11-12 February. Red, N3TG, will coordinate the examination session on Sunday afternoon.

We have nearly completed the planning.  We have the room reserved.  We put the announcement on the ARRL website. We have instructors for most of the classes.  See http://www.qsl.net/s/sterling//Licensing/licensing.html

Kevin, W4KSL, who is normally been our instructor for lessons T0 and T7 will be unavailable due to work commitments.

  T0:  Electrical safety: AC and DC power circuits; antenna installation; Rf hazards.

  T7:  Station equipment: common transmitter and receiver problems; antenna measurements; troubleshooting; basic repair and testing.

We use the K3DIO set of presentation materials.  We have tried the ARRL materials and the W5YI materials in the past and the K3DIO slides seem to work the best for us.  Each section (i.e., T0, T1, ...) consists of vu-graphs with lecture/presentation material followed by vu-graphs will all the questions in the question pool.

The materials are at
http://www.qsl.net/s/sterling//Licensing/201702_Tech_Class_&_Exam/K3DIO_Technician_2014/

If you would like to teach either or both of these, please email me.  We can probably also negotiate the date and time if these cause a severe conflict.  Potentially, we could also arrange a trade of classes with another instructor, if you would feel more comfortable with a different topic.